


Attempt #218

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2018, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 10:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Zari decides during one of the loops to finally tell Amaya how she feels.(An episode tag for "Here I Go Again.")





	Attempt #218

Zari gives herself one chance.

Just once.

On loop number two hundred something -

She tries to tell herself that she’s lost count. That it is easier this way. That it doesn’t matter how many times she goes through this because nothing changes and the ship explodes and everything resets time and time again. 

An hour.

No more, no less.

An hour to take a chance. 

She lingers outside the library, as she always does, as she has plenty of times before, but this time she doesn’t go in to talk to Nate. Doesn’t lead with the words  _ Groundhog Day  _ and have a partner in crime for a few hours. Nate - who is her friend, who deserves to get his happy ending, who she feels a bit bad about ignoring given what she  _ knows  _ happens in every other loop that she leaves him alone for. 

Hearing it once had been bad enough.

Especially when something had lurched in her chest.

Something like desire. 

For that woman that he was lucky enough to kiss in most of the two hundred some odd off these time loops. 

She wouldn’t even be trying this at all, except - it had been suggested (more than a few times) that perhaps the solution to fixing the loop was a bit like in the movie that she still had never bothered to sit down and watch, that perhaps confessing the feelings that she had been keeping bottled up inside of her too long, might just turn the whole world back to normal. 

She's pretty sure it's not going to work.

Pretty sure at this point that nothing actually works. 

But, she's exhausted every other option, and so a feeling of  _ why not _ rises up in Zari. Mixed in with enough sheer exhaustion that she doesn't have time to second guess the idea. 

“Hey, Amaya!”

Amaya turns to smile at her, the same smile Zari has seen too many times to count.

She knows by now that telling Amaya about the loop doesn't work. 

Amaya hadn't seen  _ Hedgehog Day  _ thanks to the whole being from the 1940s thing, so explaining that Zari was stuck in a time loop had never worked, she never believed her. Certainly Zari had tried and in a few of the loops Amaya had humored her, with a look of concern lingering in her eyes, but it hadn’t worked and convincing her always took up too much of the hour that Zari got each loop.

No use trying that now.

Instead she cuts right to the chase - the one she would never cut to if she wasn't racing against time, the one that still makes Zari feel incredibly nervous like her heart might fall right out of her chest even thinking about, the one that feels like stepping off the edge of a cliff and not knowing whether she will fall or fly  - and says “So, I think I’m in love with you.”

For a second.

A long second.

That seems way longer than the hour Zari knows it takes for this ship to explode once more. 

Amaya seems to stare at her. The expression on her face is not one that Zari can easily quantify. Something that seems silly considering how long she’s spend staring at Amaya’s face and yet… This one stumps her, the soft look of  _ something _ .

Zari’s already bracing herself for a gentle turndown, she knows that whatever is going on between Amaya and Nate is still as complicated and ever and that confessing her own feelings would only make things work.

But that was the beauty of being stuck in a time loop, if this didn’t work out, then it would be as if it never happened. 

The little “Oh” that escapes Amaya’s lips is hard to process.

It’s soft, just enough that it tugs at Zari’s heart, but it’s also not an  _ “Oh hey I love you too”  _ which was kind of what Zari had been hoping for.

Disappointment leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. 

“Look,” Zari says quickly, trying to fix this any way she can, “You don’t have to say anything back, and normally I wouldn’t even mentioned it, because I’m pretty sure you don’t feel the same, and that’s fine! You don’t need to feel the same way! You might not even be interested in girls! Which is also totally fine, even if it makes my heart hurt, but like I can deal with that. I can manage, I just thought - what I can’t manage is the thought that - If the ship is going to explode in the next thirty minutes and kill us all again, that at least one of these times you should know how I feel. Because, yeah,  I’m really pretty sure I’m in love with you and that I’d die for you and-” 

Amaya kisses her.

Cutting any more of Zari’s rambling off, which was admittedly, probably for the best. 

It's sudden and unexpected and wonderful. Exactly how she imagined it would be after watching an endless loop of Amaya kissing someone that wasn't her. Amaya’s lips are soft against hers, warm and opening, welcoming her in, while her hands hold tight to Zari’s flannel keeping her in place, keeping them pressed close together.

Zari’s pretty certain that there’s nowhere else she’d rather be in the world. 

Even if this is all going to be erased later. 

Even if this didn’t break the loop.

Because she’s also pretty certain that kissing Amaya didn’t do it. 

As great as the kiss is, show stopping and heartbreaking all at once, there’s no sudden sign that the time loop has ended. No magical ending like in that movie that she had only ever had described to her, and at this point, had no intention of watching. No all seeing being coming down to congratulate her on finally figuring it all out. 

Kissing Amaya is perfect, but it doesn’t save the world. 

Zari knows this somewhere deep in her soul. 

Which is why when Amaya pulls back, just a little, just enough to breathe and says, “I was distracted, but you said something about an explosion-”

Zari quickly replies, “Yeah, it’s not important anymore,” before kissing Amaya again. 

She’d figure out how to save the team in the next loop.

For now, she had something -  _ someone  _ \- far more important to occupy her time with.  

  
  
  


(“So, uh, Gideon about that one loop where Amaya and I sort of…” 

“Oh yes, I did like that attempt in particular.”)


End file.
